Soft tissue and visceral sarcomas: ESMO–EURACAN Clinical Practice Guidelines for diagnosis, treatment and follow-up†

Soft tissue sarcomas (STSs) gather over 80 histological entities, with even more molecular subsets, characterised by a low to very low incidence in all populations. The majority of sarcomas arise from the soft tissue (close to 75%), with ∼15% gastrointestinal stromal tumours (GISTs) and 10% bone sarcomas. These ESMO–EURACAN (European Society for Medical Oncology–European Reference Network for rare adult solid cancers) Clinical Practice Guidelines cover STSs, while GISTs are covered by dedicated ESMO–EURACAN Clinical Practice Guidelines [1]. Kaposi's sarcoma is not considered in the present document. Extraskeletal Ewing and Ewing-like sarcoma is covered by ESMO Clinical Practice Guidelines on bone sarcomas [2]. In general, the same principles for these tumours in children apply to adults. This is also the case for embryonal and alveolar rhabdomyosarcomas, which are exceedingly rare in adults. On the other hand, pleomorphic rhabdomyosarcoma is viewed as a high-grade, adult-type STS. Extraskeletal osteosarcoma is also a high-grade STS, whose clinical resemblance with osteosarcoma of bone is doubtful (prospective collection of data is encouraged to generate evidence on the therapeutic implications of such a diagnosis). Adult STS pathological subtypes occurring in adolescents should be managed the same way as in adult patients, though the same histotype might display clinical peculiarities when occurring at different ages.

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